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Deborah Tyler-Bennett

The Way You Look Tonight

‘I know why you’re here, Mr Parker. You might as wll come in.’

First day in a new department and I’ve been sent to escort Lady Day to the Letchworth Valley Retirement Centre. Needless to say, I’ve the right papers, signed by officials tired of looking at complaints concerning her lifestyle. Everyone on the block knows Lady Day and has prayed and petitioned for this moment. She brings bags of rubbish from the streets into her ground floor apartment and onto the communal front lawn. Two in the morning sees her playing old records, singing along as If she’s her namesake back from the dead and giving Rochester a free concert. Following her Indoors means picking my way through piled movie magazines, ashtrays, sleeveless records, plates of macaroni cheese and Hamburger Helper, books, videos, and supermarket bags overflowing with Christ knows what.

‘Neighbours saw rodents.’ My tone’s firm, as though suspicion of mice justifies my presence. ‘And there’ve been complaints concerning noise’, I add, as if such facts sanction taking a woman from the home she’s occupied since the sixties.

‘Do I have time for a cigarette?’

I nod. Sure. Liberty hall.

‘Do you want one?’

Yes. Christ, yes. ‘No, I’m trying to quit.’

‘There always seems to be time for a cigarette and a story, doesn’t there, Mr Parker?’

Again, I nod. Through smoke from her newly lit cigarette she looks younger than seventy plus. Peroxide strands fall against hazel eyes puffy with mascara. Cupid’s bow framing poppy lips run into little tyre tracks. Her peachy skin’s unnatural. Cracked voice, like Bette Davis’s in Mr Skeffington, says ‘cigarette’ so you hear decades of smoke rising up in her throat. That age-spotted velour gardenia attached to thinning hair recalls why she’s locally known as Lady Day.

‘Will it be quick?’

‘Quick as you want it to be.’

Her turn to nod.

‘Then I may as well tell you, though I’m sure you know. I was the blonde.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Don’t play me for the fool, son. I know why you’re here.’ Rising, her stained housecoat drops open revealing breasts flat as fallen dough. Without troubling to fasten it, she roots around the crap, until she finds a newspaper and hands it to me. It’s from 1957, my birth year.

I read, quickly realising this is familiar, It happened off East Amherst Drive, Buffalo, two blocks from where I grew up. A picture of my best friend, Sammy Carbone, flashes my retina. Sammy ... killed by a speeding car, crossing the street in 68. I see striped shorts, dark hair shaved for summer. Hear guttural laughter, and my Pa say ‘that Carbone kid laughs dirty, like an old man.’

‘I was the blonde, Mr Parker.’ Cigarette burned tomes explode Sammy’s picture. I force myself to look at the headline POLICE STILL SEARCH FOR MYSTERY BLONDE THREE DAYS AFTER MURDER.

An unsolved New York state crime. Elroy Brown fictionalised it. I recall reading his account out of interest because of growing up in the neighbourhood, but also remember being unable to recognise any of the streets from his Hollywood descriptions. Lurid words ignite pages stained as old coffee grounds.

Roadside dumping of Rina Jones. Jagged cuts. Twenty three years old. Tragic dancer from Buffalo who hoped to get work as an actress. Ticket in her apartment for New York City. Redhead. Last seen in the company of an ash blonde at Martys Bar and Grill. Police still searching for the blonde. Brutal stabbing. Body thrown from car. What happened after Marty’s? Blonde seen driving off alone, wearing white sheath dress and cream headscarf.

I’m looking at what’s left of the blonde. Ash coloured hair rolled, tucked and generally clean. I’m seeing a badly pinned balding velour gardenia looking as if it could fall into her lap.

‘Why didn’t you go forward?’

‘I wanted to. I was sorry for Rina. Christ knows it could’ve been me dumped by that roadside. But it wasn’t possible for me to come forward. Not in that climate. I must say, Mr Parker, you’re younger than I thought. I always imagined he’d do it himself. Not pay someone like you. I thought he knew who I was. After all, I was Rina’s conversation piece. When I left her, so she could meet her date alone, I knew who she was meeting. Afterwards, I was certain he’d find me, no matter how long it took. Maybe he’s too old to do it himself. Is that it? I’ve waited every day for someone like you to come. I could say it’s a relief that you’re here, but I’d be lying.’

Panic sticks to my tongue. ‘No, I think you got the wrong idea, I’m no killer. I’m from welfare.’

Those eyes say ‘I wasn’t born fucking yesterday.’

‘OK, you’re nice Mr Parker, from welfare.’ As she replies a smile’s ghost flickers her mouth. ‘Can I dress?’

‘Sure, and I am from welfare.’

I’m burning to ask her who she thinks my employer is, but that wouldn’t be professional. She goes to a back bedroom and I look at the artist’s impression of the blonde that sits in the centre of the news report, just below a photo of the victim’s covered corpse. Blonde. Thrift Store Grace Kelly. Before I know it, she’s back in the room. Cream dress, kitten heels, and coral beads. Old face with jawline shadows highlighted by sun streaming through slats in the blinds. Close cropped charcoal hair.

‘This is the first time I’ve worn my own hair in years.’ She says. ‘But I thought I’d go out without the wig, it’d probably have dropped of f and looked awful. I’ll look bad enough when they find me, won’t I, Mr Parker? Now you see why the lady was able to vanish. They were looking for a mystery blonde. Not a brunette called Zachary Martin (sadly, my real name). I had to be Zach again for quite a few years. It was dire, like being back in high school. But, I’d done it before, I got by. I became Lady Day when I felt the police ‘d lost track, but knew I was really filling in time, waiting for you. I must admit, I didn’t think I’d have so much time left but, like the song says, you never can tell.’

She turns her back, swaying towards the door that neither of us bothered to close when I entered. Tottering out, kitten heels clatter in my car’s direction, as sunlight picks out silver strands cutting across the dark crop of her hair, like the few gold wheat stalks bordering a field’s blackened stubble.